


it's such a shame you had to go and run your mouth

by Quintessentia



Series: Hitman!AU [6]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Dealing, M/M, fictional drugs mostly lol, guess what it's about drugs, there's finally a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quintessentia/pseuds/Quintessentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark pisses Jack off over breakfast and gets involved in an international drug dealing scheme over brunch. Felix has his own agenda. (Soulmate/Hitman!AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's such a shame you had to go and run your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> SUDDENLY THERE IS A PLOT.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to "i'm afraid to tell you who i adore" and is part of my Soulmate/Hitman!AU, so you should probably read at least that part first.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry if none of this makes any sense to you or seems too convoluted at the moment. I decided it was time to finally add in some semblance of plot so I had an excuse to keep writing this universe, since I love it so much. It may totally be boring as fuck, but I'm gonna do my best to make it more interesting as the story goes on.
> 
> Title is from The First Punch by Pierce the Veil.

“I want to teach you how to fight.”

Jack looks up at him in alarm, mouth stuffed with cocoa puffs and chocolate milk, and Mark makes a conscious effort to keep a straight face.

“Mmphh?” Jack furrows his brow and swallows around his breakfast, brain still slogging behind in the midst of the early morning hour. “Huh?”

Mark sips at his coffee, trying for casual beneath the low lights of the hotel’s continental breakfast area, and clears his throat discreetly.

“I said I wanted to teach you how to fight. You’re always talking about how you wanna do more than sit behind a computer screen, and if you’re going to be exposed to people like Felix and Marzia, then there’s stuff you need to know.”

Jack’s spoon clanks against the edge of his bowl and he sits back in his chair heavily, frowning. Mark watches him with careful eyes, taking in Jack’s reaction to his proposition.

He’d made a point to bring this up while Jack was still groggy and loose-lipped from sleep, and it might be just the slightest bit manipulative, but Mark’s got his reasons. Jack’s more likely to be fully honest with him when his brain’s only half-functional and he can’t muster up the energy to drum up any excuses.

“It’s like six thirty in the morning,” Jack grumbles accusingly at his cereal bowl, as though Mark’s not actually the one guilty of making bold statements this soon after waking up. “Isn’t it a little early to be discussing dire combat?”

Mark snorts, setting his paper cup down. “I didn’t say anything about that,” he admonishes good-naturedly. “I have no intention of sending you into a situation in which you’d have to fight to the death. My only goal is ensuring that you can actually defend yourself should the need ever arise.”

His soulmate eyeballs him wearily, hair carelessly mussed into a nest of grey-brown floof. “You’re real damn articulate in the mornings, you know that? What the hell is in that coffee?”

“Absolutely nothing but French Vanilla creamer and the desire to see you live past your twenty-sixth birthday, sweetheart.” Mark regards him flatly, but there’s amusement dancing behind his eyes. Jack makes a face.

“Quit being a tit,” he says, sluggishly rubbing the sleep from one eye. Jack’s about as useful as a very hungry toddler in the mornings, only able to focus on the desire for food and more sleep, but Mark’s trying his very hardest to break him of that.

“I asked you a question,” is the only reply he grants Jack between mouthfuls of eggs and tomato, because he needs a straight answer but also because the hotel’s make-your-own omelette bar is utterly magical.

“And I asked you to let us sleep in until at least eight this morning, but you didn’t listen to me,” Jack’s petulant demeanor is rock-solid, reinforced by a lack of sleep and added dismay towards having to get out of bed. Mark doesn’t pay him any mind.

He waits until there’s no danger of him choking on his glorious egg based creation, and then he sets his fork down patiently, glancing back at Jack.

“If you wanna involve yourself in my lifestyle so badly, you’re going to have to get used to the little things—like never observing a proper sleeping schedule,” Mark reminds him, wishing that he’d taken advantage of the southwestern omelettes when he’d had the chance. He’s feeling daring this morning.

Jack doesn’t look impressed.

“You’re just doing this to mess with my head,” he says, narrowing his eyes in Mark’s direction. “It’s some kind of reverse psychology bullshit they teach you in all those classes about how to trick people into doing what you want them to, isn’t it? You make me regret trying to emulate all of your badassery and then I decide I just wanna stay safe and boring behind a computer screen all day long, just like you’ve always hoped I would.”

Mark blinks, raising both eyebrows at Jack in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that level of astute observation from Jack so soon before the coffee kicked in, and it makes his retort stick in his throat.

He knows a million and one tricks to fool the average person into responding exactly as he wants them to, but sometimes Mark forgets Jack isn’t the average person, simply by the association they share with one another.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he bluffs, but he knows his soulmate has hit the nail on the head. “I’m just trying to give you what you want.”

A little backtracking topped with just a hint of flattery is the oldest trick in the book, but Jack’s already in a mood and most of Mark’s go to arsenal in verbal combat doesn’t work on him. It’s the downfall of trying to pull one over on someone who was born to know you better than yourself—Jack can read Mark like a book in half the time it takes Mark to come up with a suitable lie.

“Uh-huh,” Jack’s taken to looking pretty unamused at the moment. Mark guesses it’s a mix between wanting to go back to bed and essentially catching Mark red handed in the middle of a scheme during an otherwise innocent breakfast. “Do you wake up with this much bullshit inside of you or have you just been stockpiling it for days? It’s kind of worrying and frankly unattractive.”

Mark’s caught off guard by his own impromptu smile, and he almost burns his tongue on his coffee trying to slurp the laughter away. He’d like to be angrier about Jack calling him on his crap this early on in the day, but he can’t at all when the only response his brain can conjure up is internally cooing at how adorable Jack looks when he’s grumpy.

Jack’s putting every year of experience Mark’s ever had in self-control to the ultimate test, and Mark’s failing miserably by succumbing to laughter while trying to maintain his serious exterior. Clearly, he’s nowhere near as professional as he’d thought.

“Are you fucking laughing at me?” Jack’s eyes are incredulous now, and the clouds of sleep seem to be clearing away to make room for the rays of disbelief crossing his face. “I know you’re fucking with me Mark—just because I’m not a morning person doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I told you I wanted to work more closely with you and you said yes—you don’t get to take that back.”

Mark sobers a little, but there’s a tingling in his cheeks and jaw that means another smile is trying to stretch its way across his face, and it’s making it hard to concentrate. He bites the inside of his lip.

“I told you I’d let you help me out, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put you into a room with someone like Felix or Marzia and hope for the best,” he informs Jack’s stormy expression, glad he’d chosen to do this over breakfast and not while they were alone in bed, where Jack would have had the chance to properly yell at him.

“I want you to learn some self-defense, yeah, but I’m not letting you put yourself in harm’s way just for the thrill of it,” he continues, picking his words carefully. Jack is sweet and smart, but he’s got a short temper when he thinks he’s being condescended to, and Mark is a repeat offender of that particular sin. “You can help me the most if you’re doing what you do best and being safe while you do it—that’s why I need your computer expertise first and foremost.”

Jack’s still unconvinced, and Mark knows he is because his face doesn’t soften and he hasn’t touched either of the jelly donuts on his plate.

“That’s fine and all,” Jack says, and the twitch in his jaw means there’s a ‘but’ coming his way. “But you keep using the word ‘me’, and I think you’re forgetting that I’m not just doing this for you, Mark.” His expression is stern but honest, and Mark listens because Jack rarely makes that face without good reason.

“I want to help keep you safe more than anything, I can’t deny that, but I have to do this for myself too. I’m not going to play second fiddle to you all the time just because it helps you sleep better at night knowing I’m sitting around with my thumbs up my ass.”

Mark’s quiet for a moment, and he gets it, he does, but the last part isn’t fair. He knows Jack regrets all the years he spent hiding in seclusion out in the woods, and he’s seen the honest fire in his soulmate’s eyes when he talks about making up for lost time, but Jack is too impulsive for his own good.

He leans forward in his seat, unable to ignore the tension that had crept in when he wasn’t looking, and even though it’s really too early to be picking at this fight, he can’t afford to back down without making his own point.

“I’m not trying to make you feel useless,” he says slowly, armed with cautious sincerity. “I don’t want you to think I’m babying you or trying to stop you from learning and growing, but I take this sort of thing very seriously, Jack. You’ve asked me in the past not to overestimate my own abilities, and I’m asking you to do the same.”

Jack’s shoulders are still tense, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that says he’s taking in every word Mark says and mulling it over in his head. Mark can see the way he’s considering everything he hears, and he hopes to god Jack’s not feeling confrontational enough to take everything personally. He’s being as objective as he can.

“I’m not asking you to drag me on stakeouts with you or to teach me how to slit a guy’s throat from behind,” Jack lowers his voice so that the elderly couple a table away can’t think too hard about the direction their conversation is taking. “I just want you to treat me like an equal instead of someone you constantly have to look after—and if that means getting a little smarter about what it is you do for a living, then so be it.”

The way he says it, Mark can’t find the space to argue his own point, but it’s still there in the air, hanging over both of them like a sword of judgment.

“I can teach you a lot,” he relents slightly, because there’s no reason to clash against taking preventative measures. No trained assassin worth their salt would ever underestimate the value of being prepared for anything. “And I’m not opposed to you broadening your skill set, but I’m still not going to stand back and watch you march off into a fucking hornet’s nest just because you’re dying to take a few risks. This is fucking blood money we’re talking about, not a Bond drama.”

Jack’s eyes go flinty and Mark immediately regrets his choice of words.

“I know this isn’t a goddamn movie, Mark,” he seethes, lifting his chin in defiance against the veiled accusation that’s he’s mistaking Mark’s job for child’s play. “I just told you what I wanted, and you’re still looking at me like you think I’m being naïve. I’ve heard enough of your stories by now—I think I know what’s at stake here.”

It’s terrible to think, but Jack really and truly _doesn’t_ know what’s at stake. The scenes that he’s creating in his brain are bedazzled with imaginary movie effects, backed by explosions and acrobatics and dramatic one liners. Mark’s stories are just that: stories relayed from one person to the next, and the recipient is someone with limited knowledge as to how truly dangerous real people can be.

Mark can’t voice any of this, though, not without offending Jack to the highest extent. His soulmate is sensitive, mostly to reminders of how weak his knowledge is of society and passable social skills. Jack hasn’t lived in the real world for years, and to expect him to survive in a life one thousand times more terrifying and impossible than the average human’s struggles?

It’s unthinkable—but Jack doesn’t see it that way.

Mark’s head hurts, and his appetite has abruptly disappeared somewhere in between Jack calling him out on his shit and the conversation getting tense. He didn’t want their day to begin like this, not so soon after they’d finally been honest with each other about their feelings yesterday morning.

“I’m sorry,” he deflates, slumping backwards like the spineless coward he is. Fighting with Jack makes him sick to his stomach, even if there’s no yelling involved whatsoever and suddenly, he wishes they’d stayed in bed. “I don’t want to argue, Jack, _please_. I shouldn’t have said anything at all—I should have just left it alone, okay?”

Jack’s frown deepens, and Mark can see him sit a little straighter a little in his seat. Everything about this was a bad idea, right down to dragging Jack out of bed before he’d gotten his recommended eight hours of sleep a night. It’s amazing how colossally he can fuck something up given only an hour and a few badly executed ideas.

“If you didn’t want to argue you shouldn’t have brought me down here with the intention of talking out of your ass,” Jack hits below the belt and stands in one swift motion, an action that might be more intimidating if he wasn’t wearing sweatpants and one of Mark’s old t-shirts in public.

“I’m going back to sleep until after eight o’ clock,” he says, his gaze steely and dark above Mark’s head. Mark shifts uncomfortably and he feels suddenly, incredibly small in his own skin. “If you want to talk business later on that’s fine with me, but until then feel free to take some time to get your head screwed on straight.”

He stalks away, leaving a half eaten breakfast spread and a full cup of coffee in his wake, and Mark really, really wishes he’d chosen to stay in bed this morning.

-.-

Mark idles for a bit by himself, sipping at his second cup of coffee and pretending to read something incredibly engaging on his phone, but the unfamiliar sensation of guilt is eating its way through his insides.

He’s not used to feeling guilty about anything, because there’s no room for second guessing and penitence in a job where the ultimate goal is to murder unsuspecting victims for money. The feeling hollows out his chest and drops to sit like a rock in his gut, and it aches like the knowledge of hurting Jack’s feelings is only expanding inside of him, pressing up against his skin until he’s afraid he’ll burst.

For the first time in a long time, Mark feels incredibly out of his element, and it’s enough to prove to him that he doesn’t know as much about relationships as he’d previously assumed.

He loves Jack, so much so that just sitting by himself a few floors away from his soulmate while they’re at odds is wrecking his brain from the inside, but he doesn’t know how to convince Jack that his intentions are good.

Mark knows he’s an asshole sometimes, wrestling with the desire to control as much as he can around him, including the safety of the people he cares about. It just so happens that Jack is the only living person Mark cares for at all, and he’s getting the full brunt of the overprotective beast that’s recently made a home inside Mark’s chest.

He glances at the elevator, and then at his phone. It’s seven thirty AM already, and Jack had informed him that he’d be sleeping until at least eight, but Mark isn’t getting the vibe that’s he’s going to be very cooperative even after he wakes up.

Mark scrolls through his contacts until he sees the number for Felix’s personal contact line, the one he’d found written on the business card Marzia had handed to him the night before last.

Jack needs time to cool down from their fight without having to see Mark’s face around, and there’s no sense in lingering around here with nothing else to do. Mark’s never liked to waste time, not when there are potential leads wandering around outside of this hotel.

Tapping Felix’s name on the screen, he holds the phone to his ear and waits for it to start ringing. He’s never going to get anywhere with either Felix or Marzia if he just waits around, and Mark has no doubt that the con man will answer if he knows who Mark really is.

He needs a distraction anyways.

-.-

Mark shuts the door to his and Jack’s room as silently as possible, and listens for a moment. There’s no noise at all, nothing to suggest that Jack’s awake or that he even heard Mark enter, and the realization makes Mark’s heart clench a little.

He can see Jack’s profile, a lump curled up on Mark’s side of the bed and breathing evenly from a distance. The fact that Jack wasn’t startled at all by someone unlocking and entering their room is proof enough that he’s nowhere near equipped to handle the sort of work that Mark does, and that knowledge only solidifies Mark’s worries over his safety.

He tries not to think about what might have happened if someone else had crept into their room with bad intentions—someone who may have potentially been sent by Felix or Marzia to pin down Mark’s location or find out more about why he and Jack were in town. He wouldn’t put something like that past either of them, and for a second Mark hesitates in his decision to leave Jack alone and unattended for any period of time.

Jack breathes softly in their bed as Mark unearths his gun from his bag, and shoves it in the back of his jeans. He has a concealed carry license, and he knows that Felix himself won’t be unarmed when they meet, even if he chooses to look it.

Mark sets to work, equipping himself with his usual outfit of light weaponry, designed for casual meetings with people he definitely doesn’t trust. He considers leaving his earpiece behind, imagining that Jack won’t have anything to say to him on the job that wouldn’t put them both in more danger, but he attaches it anyways.

He can throw Jack a bone, even if Jack’s too grumpy to fetch it.

Felix will probably be recording their conversation, and if Mark knows anything about him from the year or so he’s been studying him in detail, he’ll have friends waiting somewhere nearby in case of an unexpected scuffle. Mark will be on his own, save for the possibility of Jack popping in through the earpiece for support or information.

 _‘That’s the good thing about two visibly dishonest people sitting down to have a false conversation,’_ his brain offers, unprompted. _‘Neither of you will show up expecting fidelity of the other person.’_

Mark isn’t going to show up without at least one ace up his sleeve, and Felix wouldn’t show at all unless he had a whole network of backups ready and waiting to kidnap Mark on the spot. It pays to do research.

Felix had been polite enough on the phone, suitably interested in speaking to Mark about a ‘propostion’, but there’s no question as to how quickly that front will fall through once they’re settled in. Felix had asked him to meet on supposedly neutral grounds—a nice little outdoor café he’d been eyeing since he and Marzia had arrived in town the week before.

Mark doesn’t really trust that Felix hasn’t already scoped the place out and paid off a waiter or two to turn their heads at any strange topics of discussion, but he’s not the one calling the shots here. Not yet, anyways.

Once he’s ready to go and passably dressed for a casual lunch date with a ‘friend’, Mark turns to where Jack’s still sleeping soundly beneath the covers.

Jack is facing away from him, but Mark can picture the exact face he’s making, soft and slack and so docile while he’s unaware of where Mark’s going and what he’s about to get himself into. He’s vulnerable while he sleeps, even after their heated conversation in which Jack had essentially denied his own complete lack of regard for personal safety, and Mark’s spine stiffens a little.

He loves Jack, and he wants to make him happy, but he can’t take back his feelings about putting Jack in harm’s way deliberately.

“If you got yourself hurt I couldn’t bear it,” he says softly aloud, resisting the urge to kiss Jack’s forehead for fear of actually disturbing his sleep. “I wish you understood that.”

Mark can’t stay any longer because Felix isn’t likely to wait around on him, and if he stands here looking at Jack all warm and snug in their bed, he might be tempted to crawl back in with him.

Instead, he scratches a note onto the hotel stationary with the barely working pen attached to the desk and leaves it by the bedside for Jack to read when he wakes up.

Mark is definitely an asshole, but he’s still an asshole who’s in love, and he doesn’t want Jack to wake up alone.

-.-

The New England air is unseasonably warm, but the breeze nips at the short sleeves of his t-shirt, and Mark wonders is he’s slightly underdressed.

The café is quaint and small, exactly what he’d assumed from the description on the website—Mark doesn’t go anywhere he can’t research first—but he can tell immediately upon entry that it’s not his type of place.

He’s frequented cityscape clubs and bars infested with leather-clad bikers, seedy diners in run down neighborhoods, and high end country clubs where he’d been charged just to enter the bathrooms. Mark is a blank slate with a gun, and he’s played a million parts over the near decade he’s been doing business.

Parisian-style sidewalk cafés have never been his choice of haunt, but they’re apparently Felix Kjellburg’s.

He gives the hostess Felix’s surname, as he’d been instructed over the phone, and she smiles at him like he’s a piece of meat. Mark doubts it’s because she finds him extraordinarily attractive, and more that she’s imagining the absolute butcher of a man he’s about to have brunch with.

She leads him towards a back patio facing a side street, one that’s gated off with wrought iron fencing and flower boxes strung high with accent lights. The tables are small and decorated with minimalist floral centerpieces, and it might be nice place to visit, were he not within ten feet of someone who might just as easily shoot him dead as pay for his meal.

It takes him a moment to spot Felix, a minor blip in his observation skills he chalks up to his target’s ability to blend in seamlessly, and then he’s being seated across from watchful eyes and a sizable spread of breakfast pastries.

“Hey,” Felix is dressed like he’s on vacation, casual designer jeans and a long sleeved tee that fits him so perfectly Mark can’t imagine he doesn’t have his clothes altered. “Nice of you to make an appearance.”

It’s not accusatory, just surprisingly informal and Mark carefully clears his face of any judgment.

“Should I assume you’ve been stood up before?” he asks, following in the same vein of ambiguously polite greetings. “I’m a man of my word, I swear. I’ve got nothing to lose by coming to meet with you.”

Felix just hums, and the puts one hand out to shake.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Mark Fischbach,” he says, dismantling Mark’s cover story in seconds with only his sparkling teeth and stuttering Swedish accent. “You’ve earned yourself quite a profile over these past few years.”

He doesn’t quite sound impressed, but there’s a glimmer of interest in his eyes and Mark can work with that.

“I don’t think we need any introductions then,” Mark returns the handshake as firmly as he can. “There’s nothing I hate more than having to waffle over pointless fronts of any kind.”

Felix raises an eyebrow, and the glimmer grows a little in intensity.

“It’s interesting to me,” he admits, settling back in his chair. “That you’re touted in so many reports as being incredibly no-nonsense in your work, and yet you still took the time to make up a flimsy excuse to get my attention back at the bar the other night. I’d have expected something a lot different from you, if I’m honest.”

That’s about the response Mark was expecting from someone with standards as high as Felix’s, but he’s come prepared for just about anything.

“When was the last time you read up on me?” he asks, genuinely curious about Felix’s extent of knowledge on his life and past exploits. “I’m not quite the same man I was just a few months ago.”

“Ahh,” Felix grins widely at him for the first time since they’ve met in person. “I picked up on that little detail during our first encounter. You have all my congratulations—he’s adorable.”

Mark’s skin crawls a little in memory of the way Felix had put his hands on Jack in the smoky air of that godforsaken dive bar, and he isn’t convinced that their relationship wasn’t already a pre-existing factor in Felix’s head.

“Thanks,” is all he can manage without visibly grimacing.

Felix continues talking as though he’s completely unaware of how un-okay Mark was and still is with the way he’d treated Jack, and studies Mark intently.

“How’s the soulmate life working out for you? You two looked quite cozy there at the end of the night.” His questions breed suspicion in Mark’s brain almost immediately—Felix just deliberately avoided his previous inquiry about reading up on Mark’s past, and he’s not exactly hiding it either.

“It’s going fine, if you’re really curious,” he replies, because the less Felix knows about Jack, the better. His tongue is heavy with the desire to find out exactly how much the con man had learned about his soulmate while digging up info on Mark, but he’d rather not plant any more ideas into Felix’s head. “We’ve only been together for about two months now, so it’s still a guessing game more than anything.”

“When we first met, Marzia was very...” Felix pauses for a moment, and taps his fingers against the ornately crafted iron of the table. “…Reluctant to pursue our connection. She had plans she’d intended to see through on her own, and she’d never considered the prospect of inviting someone along with her. Me, I was just glad that something interesting had finally happened to me—my wife was and is too good for me, you know.”

Mark is absolutely not prepared for that level of personal information, and he sits back a little, trying to process the angle Felix is taking.

“Have you always seen her that way?” he can’t help but take the bait into segueing away from business related talk. His mind has been preoccupied with his and Jack’s fight all morning, and to hear about someone like Felix’s similar experiences…it’s too tempting to ignore. “I can’t imagine what it must be like having to convince your own soulmate that you’re worth their time.”

Felix laughs, and it’s not at all offended, the way Mark had assumed it would be. It appears that talking about Marzia is something of a soft spot for him, and the information gets neatly tucked away into the back of Mark’s subconscious.

“Not many people are worth Marzia’s time,” Felix tells him, and Mark instantly doubts that he’ll ever see this level of sincerity from Felix regarding anything else. “Those are my words, not hers. She’s really a doll once you get to know her, but most people never get that chance. I’m just the guy who got lucky enough to be allowed to follow her around every day for the rest of my life.”

They’re both silent for a moment following that confession, and Felix seems so remarkably comfortable telling Mark how much he loves his soulmate that Mark’s suspicious again that he’s even going to be permitted to walk out of here alive.

“I won’t pretend I’m not jealous of how easy it looks between you two,” Mark tilts his head and considers his own words. “In all honesty, I think I’m pretty terrible for Jack, regardless of what the universe plans for us—but the stars are never wrong, are they?”

Felix appears only slightly surprised at Mark’s admission, and Mark wonders if the man in front of him ever feels complete emotions, or if they’re all just previews of the real things.

“They’ve done right by me so far,” he grants, pulling a toothpick from beneath his napkin and chewing on the end of it with idle intensity. “I’m sure I don’t have to explain my history to you, seeing as you’re perfectly capable of looking it up yourself, but at first glance I never understood why fate thought I was good enough for Marzia.”

“And now?” Mark knows they have more important things to discuss, and he can’t exactly pretend that he didn’t have the urge to punch the woman in question just a few nights ago, but there’s something about hearing a man like Felix talk about being in love that puts a halt to the tension between them.

“Now I understand that I’m still a pretty crappy person, but Marzia’s the only woman in the world who’s meant to put up with me, and somehow she’s happy to do it.” Felix gestures to Mark, who can only imagine how out of place he looks at the moment, and his face is a little too knowing.

“I’m not here to pretend to be your counselor, especially since I’m sure you dream about unloading a clip into me almost every night, but I’ll tell you one thing.” His voice is easy and his body language reeks of friendly generosity, but Felix is no honest man.

Mark listens anyways.

“You’ll find it much easier to get along with your Jack if you stop trying to prove yourself and start choosing to accept him instead. Marzia was never interested in what I thought I had to sell her, only that I cared about what she had to say.”

Felix sets the toothpick down and snags the passing waitress in one smooth move, as if he hadn’t just dropped a massively intuitive truth bomb all over their brunch table, and Mark has to look away for a moment.

If Felix called him here to mess with his head by making him emotionally compromised, then he’s succeeding, and Mark tries to rein himself in. He has a job to do, relationship woes or no, but Felix’s advice sticks in his head like an annoyingly profound song he can’t get rid of.

The waitress takes Felix’s order for two hot teas while Mark makes a concerted effort to screw his head back on, because he’s a fucking professional, dammit, and he didn’t come here to take relationship advice from a wanted criminal.

“Let me ask you something.” Mark’s hatred of small talk is no secret, and if Felix wants him to live up to his name, he will. “Do we have a conflict of interests?”

Felix regards him with a cool stare, but it’s almost appreciative—almost.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Do we? I was under the impression that you followed Marzia and I out here to kill us, but I’d be thrilled if you’d prove me wrong.”

Mark meets his gaze head on. “I’m not sure I can put your fears to rest,” he says, neither aggressive nor unapologetic. “But I’m always willing to change my mind if I’m given a good enough reason.”

“How about you start by explaining to me the real reason why you called me?” Felix is stiffer now, on guard and eyeing Mark with the sort of caution that only dangerous people know the value of. “I don’t assume much, but I’m pretty sure you weren’t actually intending on using that gun in your jeans to shoot me in broad daylight.”

Mark’s only intentions for this morning were to find out why Felix had given him the time of day in the first place, but it’s hard to ask that without putting himself down in the process. Humility can only get him so far with a man like this, and Mark doubts Felix will respond well to watching Mark downplay his own skills.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you for awhile,” Mark lets the cat out of the bag, but it’s not much of a secret to either of them, he’s sure. “I won’t pretend I wasn’t surprised when you knew of myself and Jack back in the bar, but I was more surprised that you’ve known about us for this long and haven’t tried harder to get your hands dirty.”

It’s a polite way of insinuating that Felix has had every opportunity to put out a hit of his own on Mark _and_ Jack, were he to even consider Mark’s soulmate worth the second bullet, but he hasn’t.

Mark wants to know why, because Felix’s choices mean one of two things: either Mark’s not enough of a threat on his own to merit being gunned down, or Felix is interested enough in the both of them to want to keep them alive.

Given that Marzia had even deigned to give Mark their numbers suggests that it’s very much the latter of the two, and Mark isn’t going to back away from a gesture like that without offering one in equal measure.

“You want to know why I didn’t send someone to kill you both in your sleep the night we first met,” Felix says. It’s not really a question, not in the slightest, and Mark nods in reply.

“I don’t think _that_ highly of myself,” he discloses readily. “But I’m experienced enough to know when someone has ulterior motives, and I know you are too. I don’t think either of us is sitting here right now because homicide is our go-to option. The potential is ripe for there to be so much more at stake.”

The pause between them is bloated with some kind of strange tension, like they’re both waiting to see if the weather is going to permit this sort of conversation, and then the balloon bursts quietly.

“You are good, I’ll give you that,” Felix chews the end of his toothpick thoughtfully. “But you could be better.”

Mark isn’t impressed. “Of course I could, I always could.”

Felix nods, agreeable. “That’s what I like about you,” he admits. “You think like me—which is why I even allowed you to arrange a meeting with me in the first place, Mark.”

Nothing about his laid-back posture and assessing tone sounds anything but utterly condescending to Mark’s ears, but he’s powerless to assert himself further. Felix has him in a bind, trussed up with good manners and the boundaries of polite society, a ploy Mark’s sure was in the cards all along.

“Is that so?” it takes more effort than is strictly necessary to maintain the ease of movement in his jaw when it wants to lock up at the thought of this entire visit going abruptly south.

Felix nods again.

“See, I don’t ever allow myself to be satisfied with anything because complacency gets people killed, and I’d very much prefer to be alive, you feel me?”

Mark very much does ‘feel’ him, but he’d rather not admit to it.

“How do you mean?” he asks, twisting a napkin between his fingers idly. It must look like he’s trying to strangle something.

“Well, for starters, I’m always looking to expand my circle of friends,” Felix uses the word ‘friends’ like he means it in the conventional sense, but Mark is sincerely skeptical that Felix has any friends besides Marzia that would actually qualify.  An imbalance of power does not breed strong relationships anywhere, and Felix most definitely likes power.

“Is that an invitation or a statement?” Mark may hate to beat around the bush, but he hates jumping the gun even more. Keeping his cool is probably what’s going to keep him alive in the end.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” is the response he’s given, and Mark takes it for what it is, seeing as how Felix probably isn’t attached to either the idea of killing him or befriending him if he’s leaving it up to Mark’s discretion.

“I would be interested,” he starts slowly, because there’s no telling yet what Felix really wants from him. “…In working out an agreement with you and Marzia, so long as I don’t think it would spell trouble for me or Jack. I _do_ happen to have priorities that aren’t only work based.”

Felix appears to be content with that answer, and the waitress chooses that moment to arrive with their tea, which Mark’s companion thanks her graciously for.

“I can’t promise we won’t bring trouble,” he picks back up once the tea is served and Mark’s been waiting patiently for a response. “But I can promise we won’t be more trouble than we’re worth. Marzia and I can do a lot for you, and even for Jack if that’s something he’s interested in.”

“What do you want from me?” Mark is yet to be sold on Felix or Marzia’s use to him either singularly or as a unit, but right now he’s most concerned with what Felix has in mind for him and Jack.

Felix sips his tea like they’ve got all the time in the world, and he’s not holding out on explaining a life or death defining deal to an armed gunman in the chair across from him. Mark decides that it’s an expert level of dickery that can only be learned after years of rigorous practice—and he’s not all that foreign to the concept himself.

“I need a team behind me,” Felix offers finally, setting his cup down and fixing Mark with an appraising look. “What Marzia and I have built is incredibly vast, and we can do a lot together, but we’re still only two people. At some point we’ll reach the limit of what we can control by ourselves, and that’s where you—and Jack, if he’s so inclined—come in.”

Mark swallows his surprise for the millionth time since he’d sat down at this table less than an hour ago, and purses his lips.

“So you need a solid base of people to—what, help you accomplish all your goals? Care to explain what it is you and Marzia are actually trying to achieve?”

Felix takes Mark’s prying in stride and stirs a spoonful of sugar into his steaming cup, setting the spoon aside with a soft _clink_.

“We’re people of business,” he says, in the vaguest way he can possibly manage. Mark hates his tone of voice immediately. “I know your knowledge of what we do isn’t massively in depth, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Marzia and I are self-proclaimed art aficionados. We make a point to procure priceless, obscure, and supposedly cursed artifacts, and we sell them to the highest bidder, period. That’s all there is to it on the surface, but we’ve made a point to branch out in our endeavors recently.”

Mark knows there must be more to this, but Felix is purposefully avoiding delving into the specifics because he still doesn’t trust Mark’s intentions, and because the information he’s got stewing around in his head would be a goldmine for anyone hungry enough to try and split his criminal operation open wide.

“So you got bored of just scamming people with purportedly ‘haunted’ sculptures and now you’re trying to sell people something else, am I right?” he says, wrestling with the impatience flooding his mood. His ability to wait is not the sharpest knife in his belt.

Felix shakes his head.

“Not exactly,” he denies Mark’s flippant accusation without any heat, and folds his hands together. “See, we’ve realized pretty recently that while Marzia and I have a great interest in art, we have an even greater interest in what makes people like you and Jack tick.”

Mark hears the sound of brakes squealing and tires veering off track in his head, because that’s about the last place he’d expected Felix to go.

“Which means what, exactly?” he asks, playing his confusion off as mild irritation. “Forgive me for being a little slow on the uptake, but I’m pretty sure there’s more to this then you’re letting on.”

Felix is quiet for a moment, then straightens his back so stiffly that Mark can hear it crack loudly in the silence between them.

“Marzia has a gift for understanding people—in particular, people who’ve recently bonded with their soulmates, and that passion has led us to work on something we’ve been keeping a secret for a long time.”

Mark waits, because he’s all out of prompting at the moment and Felix looks like he’s only just brushed the tip of the iceberg.

“We’ve managed to get our hands on a large supply of something you may or may not have heard of—something that allows two bonded people to communicate on a higher level with one another than usual, and one of our close friends has taken the serum a step further.”

 _Ah_.

“So this is about drugs.” Mark can’t hide the obvious realization dawning upon him, but he doesn’t think masking it is necessary anymore. “Specifically, bond enhancing drugs.”

The conversation about the history and reliability of bond altering and enhancing drugs is a moot point, because Mark’s run into more than one criminal mind who’d set their sights on obtaining so-called serums that had the ability to allow soulmates to read each other’s minds, share one another’s emotions, and feed off of each another’s energy reserves for an indefinite period of time.

The drugs exist, and they’ve been proven to be effective in some cases, based entirely on the dosage combined with the mental stability of the two subjects in question, but that’s not really the issue at hand.

Bond-enhancing drugs of any kind are incredibly illegal, and while the market for them isn’t entirely nonexistent, it’s so underground that even Mark himself has had trouble encountering legitimate dealers without a lot of outside help.

If Felix and Marzia are trying to get into the BED business, they’re biting off a lot more than Mark had expected them to be able to chew on their own, and he understands immediately why Felix is interested in building a base of loyal cohorts.

The science behind the drugs has been finicky at best, despite the string of positive results that had surfaced not long before they’d been declared fully illegal by governments worldwide, and while Mark’s absolutely certain that there’s something to all the burgeoning enthusiasm behind them, he’s not sure if he wants to get involved in something that risky.

“There have been a number of improvements made in the base manufacturing of the drugs, and the news isn’t exactly a secret,” Felix confesses without hesitation. “Many governments have already increased the number of individuals dedicated to stopping the underground production and marketing of the newer prototypes, but there are enough people with wads of money and influence on their hands who’ll pay through the nose for an opportunity to try them out. Those are the people Marzia and I are interested in, with special consideration to anyone else desperate enough to get their hands on something of this caliber.”

That’s a lot of information to consider, but it’s something that’s already occurred to Mark as Felix was speaking. Anywhere there’s a market for something, there’s motivation to produce it, and if it’s something as illegal as BED, there’s a million more people trying to dirty their hands in the business.

“So the product is good?” Neither Felix nor Marzia is known for being particularly honest in their work, but drug trafficking is in an entirely different ballpark than selling off obscure relics and paintings of landscapes.

“If by good you mean effective, then yes.” Felix looks slightly more animated than before, and Mark realizes it must be because he’s taking Mark’s interest as an agreement. “Since the formula for the drug was enhanced not too long ago, it’s been tested at a rate of eighty five percent effective in bonded pairs. That’s high enough to attract buyers of all kinds, and now that there’s a decent enough product to sell, Marzia and I are aiming to corner the market while the competition is still low.”

Mark’s head hurts from the potential economic discussion this could definitely turn into, and it’s so far from how he was expecting this meeting to go that he wonders if any of this is actually real. The possibility that he’d actually decided to go back to bed this morning instead of dragging Jack downstairs seems very plausible at the moment.

“Are you looking to make the drugs more accessible to people with less money or connections, or are you only focused on selling to those who can pay up front?” he makes an effort to sound as intelligent as possible, finally paying his weakly steaming tea the attention it deserves. He’s pretty sure it’s not poisoned at this point.

“We’re aiming to start with those who can afford it, but providing our efforts are successful there’s no reason we can’t find a way to distribute them more broadly across the population. The problem is, none of this is going to be possible with only temporary hired hands and the occasional thug at our beck and call. We need people we can trust if we’re going to make this work, and to start, I’d like to be able to trust you.”

Felix stops talking as though his thoughts have abruptly run their course, and while the details are shaky and Mark’s feeling just a tiny bit overwhelmed by the shady business dealings that are going down with him as a questionably willing participant, he feels like the basics of Felix’s proposition are definitely staring him clearly in the face.

“So you’re offering protection, purpose, money, networking, et cetera in exchange for my dedication to your budding drug empire?” There’s not much point in being polite about it, but Mark finds that he’s not incredibly against the idea as a concept. He’s never spent much brainpower mulling over the debate on whether BED are ultimately too dangerous for humans to dabble in or not, and he’s mostly just grateful that Felix isn’t asking him to sell cocaine to teenagers.

He does have his limits, after all.

“That’s the bare bones of it, if you’re interested,” Felix leans forward, expression softening into something a little less severe. “I’d imagine you’d like to talk this over with Jack, seeing as how I’m sure you tell each other everything, but first I’d like to know if this is something you’d consider taking part in at all. I won’t waste my time here anymore if you’re only humoring me at this table right now.”

Mark’s not sure he wants to know exactly what would happen if he told Felix no at this point, but the idea of declining isn’t as tempting as he might have expected it to be, knowing what he knows about Felix and Marzia.

“I won’t lie,” he goes for blatant honesty, because thinking about talking to Jack again is making him itch with the desire to get back to his soulmate sleeping alone in their room. “I have no idea how I’m going to break this to Jack, so I can’t guarantee his cooperation, but I am interested in what you have to offer.”

“Good,” Felix seems satisfied at his response, and he takes another sip of his tea. “I’ve got no problem with you taking some time to make a decision with him, but if I don’t hear back from you within three days or so, I’m going have to come calling, if you catch my drift.”

“We’ll let you know once we’ve made our decision,” Mark’s leg starts to jitter of its own accord beneath the table, a nervous habit that he’s developed recently, and one that only rears its ugly head when he’s inevitably missing Jack again. “Jack will probably want to come along the next time we meet, but I’m going to need more details on the agreement in order for that to happen.”

If Felix notices Mark’s sudden antsy behavior, he doesn’t comment on it.

“I’ll bring Marzia as well,” he adds, pushing his now empty cup away and shaking the stiffness of deep conversation from his shoulders. “We’ll have no problem relaying all the details to you then, if you both are still interested by the end of the week. I don’t take these sorts of things lightly, and I don’t ask just anyone to work with me this closely, Mark. I hope you know that.”

Message received. Mark doesn’t have much wiggle room when it comes to negotiating this one, but he’s nothing if not an opportunist.

“I’d say “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, but I think I’ve had enough of social pandering for one morning,” is his only reply, and Felix just laughs, short and less bland than he’d first seemed at the bar.

“Go back to your lover and tell me what he says,” Felix tells him, gesturing towards the exit. “I know an anxious guy when I see one, and I’m supposed to meet back up with Marzia in less than an hour anyways. I’ll be looking out for your call.”

Mark doesn’t need to be told twice, but he still counts the exits and the waiters that stare at him on his way out.

-.-

By the time Mark’s sliding the keycard in the reader on the door, his hands are shaking like he’s an addict going cold turkey now for days, and he can barely get the door to open.

He’s fully aware that Jack might still be mad at him, even after a couple hours of downtime, but he’s so full to bursting with apologies and news and the desire to be close to Jack again that he’s prepared to deal with anything Jack has to throw at him.

“Baby?” he calls, the moment his fingers manage to fumble the handle correctly enough to get it to work properly. “I’m back.”

Jack’s sitting at the table in the corner of their room, surrounded by papers and still wearing Mark’s shirt and the sweatpants from earlier, but he looks sort of wrecked.

Mark’s instantly concerned, because he’d left Jack here sound asleep, and the man in front of him looks like he’s been without any good rest for days. He shuts the door behind him and drops his wallet and gun on the TV stand next to the flatscreen, unsure of how to press.

Jack looks up at him, blue eyes clouded over with exhaustion, and his shoulders sink from their tense line the moment he catches sight of Mark.

“Jesus fuck, you’re back,” he says, and shuts the lid of his laptop like he didn’t want to be looking at it anyways. “I didn’t know what to think when I woke up and found you gone.”

Mark leans on the table’s edge, wanting to get close but trying to afford Jack his space. He’s bad at knowing when to consider an argument over, even a petty one, and he’s pretty sure Jack isn’t much better at it.

“I left you a note,” he says weakly, and then spots it on the table next to the laptop. “You know I always come back.”

Jack shakes his head and covers his face with one hand.

“Notes aren’t going to keep me warm at night or early in the morning either. I slept like shit without you here, don’t know why I thought I could do otherwise.”

He sounds embarrassed and his voice is weary, and Mark inches the slightest bit closer.

“I didn’t want to leave,” he confesses, looking deliberately at the floor. “But I thought you needed space so I went to arrange a meeting with Felix while you slept. I didn’t want to disturb you before I left, so I wrote you a note instead of waking you up.”

When he glances back up at Jack, his soulmate is staring at him with fatigue dulling the color in his eyes, and a frown drooping at the corners of his mouth. It’s pitiful and Jack’s never looked so unhappy before in the short time Mark’s known him.

“Don’t ever leave without telling me again,” Jack says, and the words should be harsh but they just sound ragged beneath his voice. “Even if I’m practically comatose and I don’t wanna talk to you for the rest of the day, don’t ever leave me to wake up here without me knowing you’re gone. It’s awful—hell, it’s worse than the hour of sleep I got after we fought this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark means it, he does. He’s never woken up without Jack somewhere close by, not ever, and it hadn’t occurred to him that Jack never woken up without him either. “I didn’t realize it’d affect you that much—I didn’t do it on purpose, Jack. I swear.”

“I know,” is all Jack says, and then he’s getting up from the chair and rounding the table, sliding his arms around Mark’s waist until they’re pressed close together and warm.

Mark’s arms move of their own accord, tugging Jack into his chest, and every ounce of anxiety or fear that’s been plaguing him since Jack had stormed away from breakfast just a few hours ago evaporates instantly.

“I wanna nap with you now,” Jack says into his shoulder, only half intelligible. Mark understands him anyways. They can talk about the fight later, when they’re back at equilibrium and Jack’s had his rest.

“I was kind of figuring you’d say that,” he scoffs lightly, petting at Jack’s hair. “You wanna make me a compromise?”

Jack snuggles closer like he’s mostly focused on burying his face as deeply into Mark’s clothes as he possibly can, but he manages an offhand, “Huh?”

“We can cuddle while I tell you my big news, and then we can take a nap after if you’re still feeling up to it.” It sounds fair enough to his own ears, and Jack makes a noise of agreement.

“Is your news something that’s gonna make me wanna sleep for a long time?” he asks, in that astute way Jack has about him whenever it comes to discussing Mark’s ulterior motivations. He’s too smart for his own good.

“Probably,” Mark admits, but with less guilt than he should probably feel. “It’s not bad, I swear—at least not by our standards anyways.”

“You don’t have standards,” Jack’s squeezing onto him so tightly Mark’s shoulder-blades are starting to ache under the pressure of his hold, and he’s stricken with a visage of Jack trying to climb his way up Mark’s torso into his arms just so he can be carried back to bed. “Trust me, I would know.”

Mark laughs, an honest to god laugh, because it’s terribly, horribly true and he’s tired of taking everything so seriously this morning.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he snorts, then hoists Jack up onto his waist with minimal effort. As he’d expected, Jack doesn’t complain, only settles into Mark’s chest and neck as though he’s a very small child being put to sleep.

“You’re way to fucking big for this, you giant baby,” Mark hisses, wincing where Jack’s knobby knees jab him painfully in the ribs. “See if I ever carry you anywhere ever again.”

“Keep talking dirty to me,” Jack mumbles into Mark’s neck, shamelessly hiding his face in the warm skin like he’s had more than enough of today already. “You know how much I like it.”

“Shut up.” Mark sets him gently on his side of the bed, flopping over Jack’s curled up form when he refuses to let go of Mark completely, and adjusting their limbs until they’re sprawled together in a comfortable pile.

“Mmkay, talk,” Jack fists the front of Mark’s shirt and realigns the side of his jaw with Mark’s collarbone and neck. “I promise I’ll listen and not fall asleep.”

One of the benefits of being soulmates is knowing that that’s absolutely not true, because Mark can tell when Jack’s drifting in and out of consciousness and when his body finally shuts down properly and dives back into sleep mode.

“I think that’s a lie,” the only heat in Mark’s voice is in the warm flicker of his breath on Jack’s forehead. “I can feel you falling asleep on me.”

“That’s ‘cuz you’re right here,” Jack sounds like he’s smiling a little, or he would be if he had the presence of mind to move his mouth that way. “You can see me and everything.”

Mark just kisses the skin beneath his lips and rubs the back of Jack’s neck in slow, smooth circles, soothing away the tension of being separated from one another while at odds.

“Nah, I can just feel all of you up here,” he taps the side of his temples with one finger, but Jack’s eyes are already nearly shut, and all he does is breathe more deeply. “We’ll talk later when you’re actually still with me.”

There’s no response, and Mark feels the beginnings of the gentle hum in the back of his head that’s always present when Jack’s no longer awake.

“I have so much to tell you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have if you're confused. Much love, and comments are very much appreciated, because I don't actually know how many of you enjoy reading these installments, lol. <3


End file.
